Berlusconi Of The Bayou

A colorful four-term Louisiana governor has landed a docu-series on A&E.

The Governor’s Wife will star 85-year-old Edwin Edwards and his 34-year-old wife, Trina, along with several of their children from previous marriages. Edwards served four times as Louisiana’s governor over the course of three decades, and also served eight years in federal prison for crimes committed while he was in office. In 2001, Edwards was convicted on bribery and extortion charges. He became pen pals with Trina during his prison stint and they married after his release last year.

The show will focus on Edwin and Trina’s May-December relationship and follow Edwin’s daughters (Anna, a 62-year-old, four-time divorcée and Victoria, a 60-year-old ex-showgirl) along Trina’s sons (Logan, 15 and Trevor, 13).

Lord have mercy, Edwin is so ghetto fabulous. Of course I’m going to be watching it. How could I not? Prytania time, Ignatius!

Look at that cute couple. Bless her little heart for being able to cast taboos aside and genuinely fall in love with an ex-con 51 years her senior. That’s true love right there folks. True love. Thank goodness for those little blue pills that allow relationships like to flourish.

Will you be watching it? Why this one and not the one about the rapper with 10 baby-mamas?

Is it because it’s OK to make fun of “yourself,” but not others? Or some such? The argfument against that would be that people in the inner city really shouldn’t watch the baby-mama show because it “corrodes their culture,” that rewarding derelicts is never a good policy, and that even if YOU don’t do such things, reveling in such behavior is dangerous in general.

I’m envious. An Oklahoma governor was impeached back in the ’20s, but only because he pissed off the wrong people. More recently, we had state senator Gene Stipe as a prime example of chronic criminality. But by the time the law managed to make anything stick, his lawyers convinced the courts the old boy was too near his deathbed to be inconvenienced with actual imprisonment. Plus there were no bimbos in the picture.

Will you be watching it? Why this one and not the one about the rapper with 10 baby-mamas?

Sure, I’ll check it out. The idea of an octogenarian tomcat trying to manage a hot young wife and her teenage suns is richly comic. Also, EWE is a legend here. He’s a despicable character, but I voted for the son of a bitch because he wasn’t David Duke. At this point in his life — post-prison, past 80 — he can’t harm anybody, so I find it possible to take some guilty pleasure in his antics.

Plus, as trashy as the Edwards clan may be, the peace and good order of society is not actually threatened by tumescent octogenarians who leave prison and marry hotties. The inherent ridiculousness of the situation provides for ironic distance.

It’s interesting, what we find funny, and what we don’t. I tried watching an episode of the Kardashians once while working out in the gym. I found those people so detestable and insufferable that I couldn’t even watch it ironically. I didn’t last long with Honey Boo Boo either, for similar reasons. I may feel that way about the Edwin Edwards show too after an episode — but having grown up with the guy as my governor, I can’t help but gawk at this latest episode in his life.

As someone who was obliged to vote for Berlusconi twice, I understand where you’re coming from, Rod.

Still, there’s something refreshing about these randy, colorful politicians. No handlers, no focus-grouped pandering, no tortured calculations behind every public utterance. So Silvio wants to go Bunga Bunga in his 70s? Better him than the opposition.

But we aren’t talking about most. We are talking about specific examples. In the case of the reality show involving the rapper and the 10 baby-mamas, it appears that he is supporting all the children involved. They don’t look like they are starving.

Generally speaking, I think it comes down to being allowed to make fun of your own kind. Upper middle class white people from Westchester look down on the black reality shows just like they look down on the hillbilly reality shows. Which is almost the entirety of their appeal to black and redneck audiences.